Abstract:The conviction of five men for terrorist offences last July gives a stark insight into how a new breed of potential terrorist is being recruited. The ring of would-be martyrs was arrested in Bradford,...The conviction of five men for terrorist offences last July gives a stark insight into how a new breed of potential terrorist is being recruited. The ring of would-be martyrs was arrested in Bradford, where three of the men studied, after convincing 17-year-old schoolboy, Mohammed Irfan Raja, to join them. Raja was first introduced to the other men, Aitzaz Zafar, then 18, Usman Malik, 19, Akbar Butt, 18, and Awaab Iqbal, 20, through an Internet chatroom by another student, Ali, from America. He hoped to join them in Pakistan where they all planned to join a training camp in the country’s lawless Frontier Province. Raja’s radicalisation through the Internet is the first case to be tried in British courts centring on cyber-recruitment. ‘You were intoxicated by the extremist nature of the material that each of you collected, shared and discussed – the songs, the images and language of violent jihad. So carried away by that material were you that each of you crossed the line,’ the judge noted. Herein lies the problem: with the Internet proving almost impossible to regulate, it is increasingly difficult to identify and stop young men from being radicalised and ‘crossing the line’. Although their plot seems fanciful, the men in this case were no paper tigers. Raja eventually ran away from home to join the other men in Bradford leaving his parents a note explaining, ‘If not in this [world] we will meet in the Garden of Paradise, Inshallah [God willing].’ The letter also told of his intention to go abroad. Computer records later confirmed that the men were in contact with a fixer in Pakistan who was planning to facilitate their passage into one of the Frontier’s camps. Al Qaeda is acutely aware of the advantages the Internet has to offer. Recent videos by its leader, Osama bin Laden, have directly addressed the American public on everything from the volatility of sub-prime lending markets to the Kyoto agreement, which Congress refuses to ratify. It’s an area where Londonbased Islamists, frustrated at their distance from al Qaeda’s primary arena of activity, have also found their calling by offering technical skills for its cyber jihad. Between 2003 and 2005, a young Moroccan, Younis Tsouli, ran sophisticated websites for the Iraqi insurgency, broadcasting their videos and messages around the world. Operating under the pseudonym ‘Irhabi 007’, which means terrorist 007, from his flat in west London, his efforts drew praise from Abu Maysara,Read More
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-11-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 10
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